


The Scope of All This Rebuilding

by Claus_Lucas



Series: Where The Heart Is [3]
Category: Mother 3
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Childhood Memories, Coming of Age, Found Family, Gen, References to Depression, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:24:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9091354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claus_Lucas/pseuds/Claus_Lucas
Summary: Kumatora was raised on an island in the middle of nowhere by six loving but dying parents. Duster had to break his father's nose to break free of his abuse. Lucas was born into a happiness-obsessed cult that took his brother in the name of God.How did any of them end up living together?





	

**Author's Note:**

> [the scope of all this rebuilding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hsqkia_S8E)
> 
> trying to explore these characters' personalities and feelings through au settings that closely parallel canon

Kumatora’s parents died in a continent she’s never set foot on. Her mother’s family claimed custody and she was ferried as an infant to the Pacific, a place that she’d later refer to as “an island in the middle of nowhere.” Her legal guardian was Ionia, one of her mother’s siblings, but her mother had seven siblings in total and six of them lived scattered across the island. Kumatora experienced a communal upbringing, spending all of her time in the general proximity of Ionia but often accompanied by some of the others as well. There were usually at least two of them visiting at any time and they weren’t shy in admitting that it was to see their niece. They divided the tasks of raising Kumatora, each overlooking different aspects of her education outside of school. They were talented in a myriad of fields and were vocal about their desire for Kumatora to inherit the best they had to offer.

If she’d been older, she might’ve felt the pressure of such expectations, but back then she possessed the pure enthusiasm of a child that believes everything has been laid out on a table for her to take. However, while Kumatora was eager, she was rebellious and individualistic, preferring to hone skills on her own once she’d jotted down the basics. Teaching her to challenge anything she didn’t agree with backfired as a phase where she’d play devil’s advocate over the most trivial topics, but at least they were proud of her for taking the advice to heart. Some of the talents she developed during that period of her life are kickboxing, ballroom dancing, ice skating, bird watching, mushroom picking, lucid dreaming, fishing, rabbit rearing, octopus biology, carpentry, seashell arranging, and pickle preserving.

Besides dotting on her, Kumatora’s caretakers were avid storytellers. Breakfast, supper, and dinner were only held once everyone had gathered and conversation always flourished throughout them. Ionia owned a spacious house near the beach where Kumatora could fall asleep listening to the ocean waves but most nights she’d drag her blankets and pillows down the seashell staircase to make a bed on the floor of whoever was visiting. Kumatora’s relatives brought news of the outside world and their own experiences, so many and so diverse that Kumatora was convinced several book could be filled with them (she once entertained the dream of writing those herself). It was the perfect environment to nurture Kumatora’s hunger for amassing such a palette of experiences as well. At a tender age, she decided that she would trust her heart over her head and contemplate the consequences of actions once they’d been done. Kumatora also learned all the tricks of storytelling from her mentors, leading to years of successful theatrical performances. She loved drama and poetry, indulged the dreams of others, and made note of how they perceived the purpose of their existence. Kumatora was on a journey of self-discovery long before the prospect occurred to her.

Though there were arguments, Kumatora’s guardians were firm in endorsing a supportive environment. She had room for self-expression and exploration. A profound desire for independence often made her too stubborn to discuss her problems at length but she knew that a channel was always open and she could count on someone to listen. Their advice wasn’t always what she wanted to hear but she was grateful for the good intentions. Best of all, they didn’t hold any sign of weakness against her: if she cried or lost her temper, they’d offer what solace they could and then, once the episode was over, proceed to act like it hadn’t happened. This dynamic suited Kumatora because of her absolute necessity to uphold a tough exterior – if she wanted help, she’d ask for it; if she didn’t ask, it was best to not meddle, regardless of how much her eyes watered. The world outside of their family was far less understanding but Kumatora developed a fundamental pride in herself and her ideals, enough to carry her through the grimy cracks of society without ever devaluing herself. She’d knock out the teeth of an idiot before the meaning of their insults registered in her head.

When she was just shy of her fourteenth birthday, Kumatora was diagnosed with bipolar. A couple of months later, obsessive-compulsive was added to her medical record. The only news to her was the labels: she was an insightful teenager that had already noticed the psychological differences between herself and most peers, and rather than merely suck them up she’d negotiated methods to make the best of whatever difficulties arose. The therapy sessions were useful, sure, and the prescription medication helped subdue some of the chaos, but most of the fight continued to be her own – as it would always be.

There was a lot of drama involved, unfortunately, courtesy of the side of her family that had been overlooking her upbringing with a less than approving gaze. They’d been searching for an excuse to brand her caretakers as disappointing. None of them were fond of Ionia – hence the fact that Ionia and the five siblings that actually liked them had made their home far away from the rest. The fact that Ionia kept involving the others, however, only thinned their approval. Nuclear families and status quo abiding was big amongst those branches. Kumatora knew very well that she’d dodged a bullet when her mother left custody to Ionia (and, according to what Ionia once told Kumatora, her mother had known, too).

The problem was that, the older Kumatora got, the more her overseas family pressed to take the reins of her life. Legally, they were powerless, but they could be quite aggressive in how they vocalized their discontent. Kumatora refused most phone calls and disposed of letters without reading them, but every now and then she was forced to listen to their spiels – sometimes her answer was to groan, sometimes her fist slammed into the wall. The worst was when Yokuba visited. Yokuba, the missing sibling, the one of whom happy stories were told despite his decision to cut ties with Ionia and the rest shortly after the death of Kumatora’s mother – Yokuba claimed to love Kumatora, but really he was only interested in the idea of Kumatora, this strange trophy that he’d placed around her neck, something he thought himself entitled to and couldn’t believe Ionia had wound up with it instead. Kumatora dodged him while she could but eventually he got what he wanted: Ionia contracted a disease and passed away during Kumatora’s sixteenth year; the details were never disclosed to her but custody was settled and she was ferried once more across the ocean, this time to a house that never became a home with a man that never felt like a parent.

Yokuba tried to control Kumatora, redesign her as he’d always dreamt, but she arrived with every intention of going against him and she upheld that until the day she ran away: no matter what Yokuba asked of her, she was always on the offensive, defying him regardless of how small the matter was, endangering herself time and time again when she refused his food (she worked and paid for her own meals), his education (she was constantly dropping out), his clothing (she’d dress like no princess), his emotional abuse (she didn’t fall for his gaslighting). Kumatora never expected life to be as wonderful as with Ionia but she would not settle for someone that couldn’t accept her in earnest. Yokuba had no respect for Ionia. He insulted them for allowing Kumatora to define her identity, insisting that they should’ve raised her as female from the beginning and taught her how “a proper girl lives.” Kumatora knew Yokuba was intersex too but she had no compassion for whatever self-hatred he’d internalized: she saw the cycle of violence repeating and wanted out, wanted room to be herself again.

At 18 she finally gave him the slip, boarded a train with her savings strapped to her belt and a Polaroid camera that snapped everything new she encountered (to this day she has filled several photo albums and covered her walls with more – she records all of her experiences). She kept on the move, never staying in a single town for long. Yokuba either couldn’t track her down or didn’t try. She’d been on her own for three years when she walked into a bar to beg for a job and wound up meeting Duster. The rest is history.

* * *

Wess – that’s Duster’s father – had a few mottos: no pain no gain, the end justifies the means, and forgive and forget. He was faithful to them from the cradle to the grave and made sure everyone around him knew. He was also tremendously proud but had failed to accomplish several of the goals he’d pursued during his youth, leading to an overall bitterness towards life and a desire to see them fulfilled by the only person he had absolute control over: his son.

Duster was raised on “tough love,” the strict ideals of his father hammered into him throughout the whole of his childhood and adolescence. Wess was open to the opinions and lifestyles of others but he drew a line when it came to his son, treating any attempt at divergence from the model he’d mapped as an attack on his person. Duster internalized the notion that defying Wess in the smallest manner – saying no to a walk, disliking something Wess had cooked, choosing to join the music club instead of the soccer club as Wess wanted – equaled rejecting his father as a whole. Duster believed that he had to change those instances where he couldn’t match Wess’s expectations with perfection because Wess was always right. Thus Duster tailored his actions and his feelings, regulating even his desires so he’d only allow himself what Wess would approve of. “Fake it until you make it” was Duster’s motto.

A lot of Duster’s upbringing (Wess called it “training”) involved physical activity. Duster appeared strong because he was taller than most kids his age but he inherited Wess’s weak complexion and suffered from the same handicap that had haunted Wess throughout his own youth. Wess was always trying to fortify Duster, engrossing him in sports and physical labor (Duster’s first job was carrying materials for a construction company) so that he’d develop muscle mass. Duster seemed all right during the first sixteen years of his life but problems started cropping up after that. Like a child athlete that had finally been pushed to his limits and his body was starting to deteriorate, Duster faced the sudden inability to perform as efficiently as before – by a wide margin.

But Wess was reluctant to acknowledge that Duster was incapable of overcoming nature’s limits and continued to push him. This culminated in Duster breaking his leg pretty badly and being hospitalized. The doctor had him on rehabilitation therapy for weeks and instructed him on how to be careful so the bones could heal properly. There were specific guidelines, which Wess was briefed on too, but the moment Duster was sleeping at home again Wess was breaking all of them. So Duster’s leg got worse, his bones didn’t heal properly, the fractures expanded. There was irreversible damage by the time Duster returned to the hospital for a checkup. The doctor gave Wess a warning that he couldn’t ignore this time, but the damage had been done: Duster would never walk normally (Wess only ever seemed interested in the fact that Duster was visibly limping, however: the recurring pain and discomfort that Duster endured was dismissed).

More medical studies revealed that Duster had also inherited several physical deformities that had remained hidden until then because his body hadn’t developed enough to expose his uncommon bone structure. Wess stated aloud on several occasions that these didn’t come from him but since Duster knew nothing of his mother there was no way of assessing whether that was true or not (Duster suspected it wasn’t, though).

Duster was enrolled into therapy for a while and things seemed like they were getting better, at least for Duster who no longer had to deal with all those painful experiences by “just sucking it up.” Then, abruptly and without warning, Wess decided to withdraw Duster from therapy, cancelling all of his medical appointments in the process. He told both the doctors and his son that he’d found someone new to take over the situation. It was soon clear to Duster that there was no replacement: Wess just wasn’t going to let him see help anymore.

Duster couldn’t agree but also couldn’t disagree to Wess’s face. He kept the anger tucked beneath his ribcage, smothering his heart and lungs so hard that he couldn’t breathe at times. Frustration boiled into panic and anxiety leaked everywhere: each interaction, each decision, each though could trigger an attack. Wess never saw these breakdowns because Duster had already learned to bottle his distress until it was safe to spill out. As a result, Wess was allowed to continue thinking that he was a good parent and had never hurt Duster (at least, not hurt him in a way that wouldn’t ultimately benefit him). Wess never became aware of the abuse he propagated. If Duster had tried to spell it out, he knew Wess would refuse to believe. Wess was safe in his little bubble of no pain no gain and the end justifies the means. But the end was never good for Duster – and Wess just kept pushing, insisted on more because he thought someday soon it’d pay off.

Duster got fed up, of course. Despite the depression, despite the skewered sense of self-worth, despite the dependency and commitment to his father – Duster held on for a long time out of fear, but in the end that very fear put him in a fight or flight mode and since he couldn’t fight, well, he ran from the home that made him miserable. It was an accident: Duster didn’t mean to drive out of town, stay at a hotel for three weeks, apply for a job at the local deli, get on friendly terms with his coworkers, discover he could be a functional adult without his father coordinating his every action. But, by the time Duster emerged from the panic and realized what he was doing, the fact was staring him in the face: he was surviving. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not as ideally as he’d like, but it was somehow better than living with Wess. Duster did some real soul-searching then, reflected on his life and his relationship to his father, trying to piece together what made this barely scraping by better than having all his basic necessities met without struggle while under his father’s roof. What Duster discovered was that not all his basic necessities were met with Wess. In fact, his father had steadily neglected to supply healthy emotional support.

Wess had always been some degree of abusive, which only worsened as Duster grew up. Duster recognized that then and it filled him with terror for the future. He knew he had to return home, but that would further deteriorate his mental health. Plus, Wess refused to help treat Duster’s physical disabilities, so he was screwed there, too. He descended into routine again and treated days as a blur.

Duster was still trying to figure out the course of action that he should take when Wess found him. His father hadn’t alerted the authorities but he’d been searching on his own. Duster was working at a bar at the time. He dropped the drinks he’d been carrying to a table when he noticed Wess seated nearby. An all familiar alarm flared in his chest, spreading quickly through his bloodstream, and he was certain he’d have an attack if he stood in that building any longer – so he made a run for it.

He was determined to get out of town: hop on a bus that would take him as far away from there as possible. He’d keep moving forever if it meant avoiding a confrontation with Wess. But as Duster fled, his weak legs threatened to cave and he was forced to stop for a moment. A deep breath was sucked into his lungs, and Duster glanced back, saw Wess watching him from outside the bar. He wasn’t chasing Duster. He was standing perfectly still, just watching, with an expression Duster couldn’t discern through the distance. The years of being conditioned to serve his father, however, tugged at Duster’s heartstrings and he was tempted – genuinely tempted – to return to Wess’s side. “Forgive and forget” flashed through Duster’s mind. That’s what Wess would’ve wanted to say.

But “forgive and forget” doesn’t work if the one that’s done wrong refuses to acknowledge it. What’s more, even if the heart convinces itself that all is forgiven, the mind can never release trauma completely.

Duster did not receive this enlightenment soon enough and so he did stop, he did turn, and he did start walking back. Duster stared at the ground up until when he was standing right in front of Wess. Wess looked confused, but it soon melted into an ugly mixture of amusement, conceit, and triumph. Duster knew what was on his mind before he could say anything: Duster couldn’t survive without Wess, Duster would always come back to Wess, Duster was strong because of Wess and needed him to continue making him stronger – basically that everything good in Duster’s life was because of Wess.

Duster coming back confirmed what an excellent job Wess had done raising him.

Wess was the sort of father that was always waiting to be thanked for his hard work. Wess had dedicated his life to improving Duster’s and he wouldn’t take “you abused and fucked me up” for an answer. In the past, Duster had always given Wess what he wanted, whether it was a verbal statement or the everyday way Duster bent to fulfill Wess’s whims. Wess’s love had always been conditional, something that was rationed as Duster earned it, while every act of love Duster had performed was taken for granted because Wess felt entitled to all of it.

Wess grabbed Duster’s arm, rough but not any different from how he usually grabbed his son. His mouth moved: he said something about going home, but Duster couldn’t decipher the exact words. Duster’s fight or flight instinct kicked in again, and this time it was fight that won.

Duster punched Wess in the face, probably enough to break his nose. It was the first and only time Duster rebelled in the presence of his father. Duster didn’t hang around to see how Wess would react. While Wess was still sprawled on the floor, Duster turned and ran, for good this time.

What kept Duster going was the fear of confronting Wess. Deep down he always held onto the idea that he’d have to go back someday, but the fear fended off any attempt to actually try to locate Wess. With time, the urge grew weaker, until eventually Duster couldn’t have been talked into seeing Wess if Wess himself had appeared in front of him.

Duster remained a faithful, friendly guy with a heart of gold, the patience of a saint, and an obvious desire to become the surrogate father figure to some younger runaway. But his devotion was earned from then on. “Family is who you choose” became Duster’s new motto.

* * *

Lucas was born into a cult. His parents were followers, his father still is. Lucas doesn't know how far back the cult reaches but they've been around for at least a couple of generations. Whoever started it lived in a modest little village called Tazmily. Surrounded by forests, canyons, and the sea, they were a farm based community that worshipped what modern scholars refer to as “pagan gods.” The heads of their pantheon were twins that manifested on Earth as dragons, embodiments of dualities and maintainers of balance.

Tazmily's religion wasn't very developed, but it was accepted by the majority of its population. Even those that did not adhere to it directly oversaw the yearly traditions and paid respect to the twin gods every now and then. Tazmily couldn't have been older than a century at that time but its faith had existed for a couple of more centuries. It was birthed on a different continent, carried across the ocean until its followers became dispersed and the importance of the religion dwindled. Yet it remained in small pockets like Tazmily.

The cult started when that particular person developed a drastically different interpretation of the pantheon. Their peers did not agree with these radical new ideas but they were peaceful, refusing to stir up a major dispute because of it. That person could've been contained if they'd remained ignored. Unfortunately, they somehow managed to persuade one of the villagers, then another, and so on. A group emerged that was too large to be ignored. They were quite vocal about their preaching, calling the current worshipping of the rest criminal, corrupted, misguided. The religion that was brought from across the ocean, that person claimed, had been misinterpreted when their ancestors settled in Tazmily, and now they had arrived to set the record straight. Those that simply refused to convert were eventually driven out. All that stayed believed in the new interpretations. They were always a cult – they just neglected to refer to themselves as such.

People weren't allowed to travel freely when Lucas was born so he never knew anything outside of Tazmily until he ran away. He noticed that when people procured permission to leave, they always returned with new members, whole families sometimes. Tazmily's faith was fierce: no one considered escaping. Perhaps because, despite their past aggressions, living strictly amongst their own had allowed the cult to flourish into a comfortable social structure. The main aspect of their dogma was happiness. They believed that sadness was an illusion and believing in it a choice. In their perfect society, the sadness trap had been eradicated, along with every other negative emotion. People accepted that they had attained permanent happiness, and they felt satisfied with this. Children were given a couple of years to adjust to the cult's “enlightenment,” but once that period was over they were expected to overcome sorrow, anger, fear, and all the rest, just as the adults had.

Lucas was reproached for being sensitive, for easily resorting to tears, and for those self-injuring tantrums that possessed him whenever he went into sensory overload – but they were mere teasing, more playful than menacing, because the adults truly did believe that when he reached a certain age that behavior would stop manifesting.

Lucas was right at the threshold when his mother died. Details weren't disclosed, but it had something to do with the forest. There were rumors that it had become unsafe. The village was assigned a period of one week to mourn her death, then they were back to their perky old selves. Some of them acted like it hadn't happened, others merely regarded it as an ordinary event, something of little to no importance. Lucas, naturally, could not do the same.

They expected him to follow the herd. When he continued to have fits of blubbering and wailing, expressed grief to the other villagers, and all around was incapable of performing daily tasks, the expectation solidified into a threat. It was a violent silence that met Lucas during those first days, the worst he'd felt in his entire life. And yet it was the calm before a much darker storm.

Tazmily's inhabitants ignored Lucas, leaving him to his own devices. That was painful, it was unexpected and harsh and made his mind reel, but he could deal with himself by venting alone. Then someone decided that the charade had extended beyond its expiration date and Lucas required stronger persuasion to snap out of it. They got Lucas to shut up by covering his face with cloth, suffocating him until he passed out. They dropped boulders on his limbs, chest, hips (he has fracture lines in his collarbone now that'll never heal). While having one of his fingers snapped, Lucas would hear a voice asking, “Does it hurt now? Do you understand now how you were never really sad before?” The cult's other core belief was that pain could only truly exist in the physical body, not the mind or spirit. Once a person experienced true physical pain, they'd understand that every other pain pales in comparison. Lucas could certainly appreciate the moments when he wasn't being injured but that was a poor remedy for the anguish that had taken residence in his psych. They could not crack his defense. They saw him as a test from above and they were determined to not let the gods down.

It's probable that none of them considered their actions evil. Evil was a concept that the cult's founder had made sure to abolish. But ignorance of what constitutes evil always leads to it running rampant.

Every day, Lucas was brought before the entire village and asked if he'd overcome his grief. He usually lied to get out of it. But it wasn't long before he slipped up: he could never keep it together. When they realized they'd been tricked, punishment was more severe, but Lucas learned to accept it. He was gradually starting to agree, if not with their practices then at least their philosophy. He turned to prayer, asking the gods why they had made him faulty. His brother was dealing with the loss of their mother so much better than him. Lucas studied him, tried to ask, but he was always met with a wall. His brother had been quiet for a while. Lucas wondered, weren't they both special? Had he failed in some terrible way and this was the gods' way of disowning him?

The incident with Lucas’s brother was even worse than what happened to their mother.

His name was Claus, and because of him, Lucas's upbringing was never quite normal, even within the parameters of a cult. Twins were regarded as sacred in Tazmily, a direct gift from the dragon gods. Since their birth, they were prognosticated for greatness. The whole community fawned over their existence, contributing to their health, their comfort, their status. One of Lucas earliest memories is being asked to perform a peculiar task for one of the villagers: “Can you move this without touching it?” he was asked. In his mind, Lucas can see him fulfilling it perfectly, but nowadays he tells himself that it's merely a false recollection (magic isn’t real, after all).

Lucas can't validate any of the cult's practices or beliefs, therefore he refuses to believe that he has any sort of supernatural powers. The years he spent in Tazmily, pleasing the whims of those people, they're a big mess of smoke and mirrors. Lucas can't read people's minds, he can't set things on fire, he can't predict the future. Coincidences and misperceptions. The villagers were deluded and Lucas was a child, of course he believed in a bit of fanciful magic. If the cult said that they could channel the power of the dragon gods, Lucas and Claus lacked the logic to argue against it.

Every year, on the date of a certain festival, Lucas and Claus were forced to enact an especially remarkable feat. It was “forced” because neither twin ever wanted to partake in it, refusing adamantly up until they were dragged away from each other. Then one of them was blindfolded while the other was held over a river of thrashing water. Strange enough, Lucas was usually the one blindfolded. His job was, as the villagers put it, “to locate Claus with his mind.”

When the festival started, Claus was dropped into the river. Panic immediately overwhelmed Lucas, a feeling that soaked into his skin and then burst through his lungs, making Lucas feel as if it were him floundering and swallowing water. Time was never on their side. The river wasn't far but they chose a different part of it each year, and Claus would drown within minutes. It's hard to explain, now, how Lucas found his brother each time, how Lucas survived when it was his turn to be plunged underwater. It's hard to believe any of it happened at all, but if Lucas can't trust his memories then he has little left to lean on. Some things are best left unquestioned.

The façade fell apart after their mother died. They both suffered, but their reactions were vastly different: Lucas threw everything out, Claus sucked it in until there was no room left. To the villagers, it appeared as if Lucas had succumbed to an undesired state, failing their expectations for him as a great and wise diviner. Claus, on the other hand, was brooding but not obviously suffering. While they were preoccupied scolding Lucas, they gave Claus the space he needed to not reveal the violent tendencies that he was nurturing. Claus's behavior, in the eyes of Tazmily, was evolution: moving forward from where Lucas had dropped out. The gods were deserting Lucas and inhabiting Claus completely. They had chosen not two vessels but one, and this was infinitely more sacred than a pair of psychic twins. Never in the cult's history had they known a single child with the powers of both dragons, but it was believed that, if it ever happened, it was a sign that their religion had reached its proper place: the gods approved of their practices.

They had to know for certain, though. Having lost interest in Lucas, they targeted Claus. But not openly: they did not want to alert him. They watched, kept track of his movements, his actions. Occasionally they asked for favors again, but both Lucas and Claus had become uncooperative since the accident. Lucas was perceived as no longer proficient, while Claus was given the benefit of the doubt, venturing as far as to theorize that he was instead waiting to show them something far greater than they could imagine. One last omen to seal their faith.

Lucas remembers little of the night Claus disappeared. He was never found dead, but he wasn't found in any other state, either, so Lucas has come to terms with the fact that he's as good as gone. The last Lucas saw of his brother was near the entrance to the woods. Claus said he was going to find whatever had hurt their mother. Lucas pleaded for him to stay, but Claus told him not to worry, claiming he’d discovered a special power and it'd protect him: he was stronger than whatever monster was out there. Lucas did not have the mental stability to stop him.

Exhaustion claimed Lucas’s brother's life in the end. Exhaustion from everything: the village, the people, their mother's death. Again, there weren't details. The village proclaimed Claus “ascended.” They didn't even allow Lucas a week of mourning: instead it was a celebration.

To this day Lucas is convinced that the villagers had something to do with Claus never coming home. There was no monster, so something else had to have taken him. His father got this idea in his head that he'd go out there and find Claus himself. Lucas watched him leave every morning. One evening his father came back to discover that Lucas had disappeared, too.


End file.
